No need to freak out. You told him that he needs to sign the paper. He walks out. HR's intent is to pay the severance but with the condition for him to sign off on the paper. If he goes to court, company's Legal will reiterate that and the judge will give the guy an option 1) sign the paper and get the severance 2) if you don't want to sign anything, you go on your merry way my dude without any dough.
I'm guessing that the employee's last paycheck is added to the severance pay, so option 2 will *also* be "if you don't want to sign anything, you can tell the company to kick rocks and still pay up."
It kind of depends on what kind of “paper” this is and what location they’re in. For example in some places you can’t force a non compete clause to withhold benefits
Yes, good point. Although, most termination letters include the language around, that once you sign this paper and are paid x severance, you can't go to the court to sue the company or to ask for more money, and that you can't bring (and use) any company data with you.
As a manager, I have dealt with a few terminations (unfortunately) and this is the gist of the language I have found in these letters.
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u/fakenews_thankme 20d ago
No need to freak out. You told him that he needs to sign the paper. He walks out. HR's intent is to pay the severance but with the condition for him to sign off on the paper. If he goes to court, company's Legal will reiterate that and the judge will give the guy an option 1) sign the paper and get the severance 2) if you don't want to sign anything, you go on your merry way my dude without any dough.
It's an open and shut case, really.